Building Afghanistan’s infrastructure

Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo.., has introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that won’t get voted on, but should be. McCaskill, former Missouri state auditor and chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Contracting Oversight , has taken a deep look at so-called counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan that have blossomed into hundred-million-dollar infrastructure projects for roads, water systems and the like that have no possibility of being sustained.

McCaskill’s amendment would strip this funding and redirect $800 million of it to roads and bridges here in the United States. Nearly $7 billon has been spent on such projects in Afghanistan and Iraq since 2004, McCaskill said.

The Commanders’ Emergency Response Program and Afghanistan Infrastructure Fund have morphed from petty cash funds to help commanders appease local populations to huge construction projects rife with corruption. McCaskill cited 19 studies that show “serious flaws” in the programs.

“All you have to do is travel around Iraq and see the empty, crumbling health care centers built with American taxpayer dollars,” McCaskill said. “The water park that is a twisted pile of rubble that is no longer operational. All of the investments made in oil production and electricity generation that were blown to bits… Let’s do this. Let’s stop these large projects that cannot be secured or be sustained. We should take this investment and put it in roads and bridges right here in our country.”

The amendment won’t be voted on and the defense bill is expected to pass tonight, with $527 billion for the Pentagon budget and another $117 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq . It will also contain provisions that Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Rand Paul, R-Ky., and others say strip Americans of their right to trial. The White House has promised a veto.